Resveratro

Nature's Antioxidant Powerhouse

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There is a widespread belief that having a glass of red wine a day is a valuable part of a healthy diet. It is believed that moderate consumption of red wine may help to lower the risk of heart disease, stroke and early death due to red wine’s antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and lipid-regulating effects. How does red wine bring about these benefits? This is due to one key compound found in red wine - resveratrol. Resveratrol was first discovered by Japanese researcher Michio Takaoka in 1940 when he submitted a paper for a graduate degree in which he described studies of plants with a folkloric history of having medicinal properties. These studies involved the extraction, isolation and identification of compounds that may have biological activity. In his thesis, Takaoka described a compound he named “resveratrol” since it had been extracted from the roots of Veratrum grandiflorum (white hellebore) and had a molecular structure that incorporated the skeleton of a smaller molecule, resorcinol. Takaoka did not attribute any special properties to this compound then. And for years, there were only sporadic descriptive papers investigating the compound.

Research on resveratrol stayed more or less dormant until scientists from the University of Illinois published a paper in the journal Science in 1997 which suggested that resveratrol merits investigation as a potential cancer chemo-preventive agent in humans. The study put resveratrol in the spotlight for the first time, and triggered intense scientific investigation of the compound, with thousands of papers dedicated to the subject.